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The summary describes TiVo as kind of a glorified cable box. However I believe (from personal experience) that TiVo's greatest feature is that it lets you cut the cable altogether. TiVo can act as a DVR for your antenna -- a feature that is a reason many stay with cable nowadays -- and supplements free, local programming with thousands of on-demand shows over the internet. I am over 25 miles from the nearest TV transmitter and I can still receive dozens of local channels with excellent quality and better reliability than satellite.

I no longer pay outrageous cable or satellite bills. I installed a rooftop antenna that, including amplifier, antenna, and mounting hardware, cost less than a once month subscription to my satellite provider. If you are dissatisfied with cable/satellite pricing, programs, and paying to be advertised to, then stop paying them!

Works for salaried employees in a different way. My company gives me 5 days of sick time per year, no questions asked. But I have doctors appointments, and I have young kids, and I have a wife with a chronic illness.

Company policy is that every hour out of the office that is not officially sick or vacation time must be made up by the end of the week. This results in me having to put in 11 hour days while still sick just to meet my weekly 40-hour requirement, saving the sick time for when my son needed surgery or my wife was admitted to the hospital for a week.

You probably know far more about treatments than I do, but have you ever tried taking melatonin? My disordered sleep was far milder, but taking it when my rigid sleep routine is at all disturbed has helped me move from an unable-to-sleep-until-3 AM-and-then-passing-out-in-the-office to a fairly regulated sleep schedule.

It's a neurohormone that you can take sublingually in pill form, and is available over-the-counter in the United States. Wikipedia has some decent information about how it works. (I get mine from Whole Foods -- about the only thing I'll buy there.)

Look to the authors to find better predictions. Greg Bear predicted the future of the internet and media fairly well in Queen of Angels in 1990, and William Gibson actually invented the term "Cyberspace" (not to mention the entire cyberpunk genre) in 1984 with his novel Neuromancer.

As another one in the GP's boat, this is less easy than it sounds. I had a budget, factored in all my bills, set aside savings, and left room for extra expenses. Then, for the past three months, my medical bills have been far exceeding my mortgage payments. Combine that with companies rolling back on bonuses, car trouble, and the like... Now how is your budget going to help you?

It's an app from the ACLU which lets you one-touch photograph or video an event and upload it to a secure location. (There is also plenty of useful information and now-what guides for interacting with police, laywers, an arrest, etc.) A very useful app [that I did not write].